


More Than Kin.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-02
Updated: 2003-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...and less than kind. Elrond misses his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Kin.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rhysenn's [Alliance Fic Challenge](http://rhysenn.morethanart.org/lotr/alliance). Sindarin terms: gwador - brother. Ada - father. It is canon that the Fellowship left Rivendell on 25 December.

When Elros and I were ninety years old, we were presented with a choice: to be either human or elven. We could not stay in between like we'd been all our lives. Everyone assumed that we would choose together, but I knew it was not to be. Elros had always been in love with man while I did not hate elves the way my twin did. I was actually rather impartial towards men as a whole, but Elros was passionate about them. I suppose I knew what his choice would be before he made it, before he turned to me, brown eyes wide and hopeful, yet brimming with unshed tears. I knew what his words would be before he said them, yet they broke my heart nonetheless.

"My dear brother," he said, "I believe it is time we parted."

I think I screamed then, but I do not remember doing so. I know I hit him, for he bore the mark with honor all the days it took for it to heal. After my rage had diminished, I grabbed his face in my hands and studied him, looking for any changes. As always, he was my mirror image, but I imagined I could already see the cold hand of death upon his brow.

"How could you do this to me, Elros, _gwador_?" I asked him. He did not answer, but bore my gaze for as long as I dared stare at him. "How could you leave me alone, for eternity?"

"It is your choice, my brother," he told me calmly. "And it not eternity. It's a farce, Elrond, but you do not see it. You see only the future. You see only time, time in which to learn, to perfect your healing arts. But tell me, dear brother, what will you do when even that pales in your mind, when all the weight of your years comes crashing down around you, closeting you in your memories? When all you think of is the past, because there is no future? Dear brother," his voice lowered at this and his words were only a harsh whisper in my mind, "do you really want to see the end of the world?"

I think I cried in his arms then. To be separated from a brother is a terrible thing in any case, but Elros was all I had. My earliest memories are of playing with him. After our parents left to find shores unknown, he was my last close relative. And he was leaving me. I can't bear the pain even now, and what I feel now only pales in comparison to the breaking of my heart the day Elros chose mortality.

We had both by then attempted to rival the ocean in our sorrow, but neither of us would be swayed from our course. I was determined to remain in Lindon with my last remaining family and Elros wanted nothing more than to journey with the humans, to learn what it was like to live always in the shadow of death. I did not understand him, but that is well. He did not understand me either. Yet I do not think our love for each other diminished, not even when I stood over his dying body and passed the crown on to his grandson. I know now, my own grandson will be a King, and I was never so thankful that I will never see it. I am not Elros. I cannot bear that my children have all taken mortality upon themselves. Elros, on the other hand, accepted it as he made his choice. I had thought immortality would spare me the loss of loved ones. How wrong I was.

And so I kissed him.

We were no stranger to each other's arms, Elros and I. After all, we were more than brothers; we were twins. The Valar might frown on it, but Elros and I were still counted as children before our sundering and afterwards, well, Elros was human, wasn't he? No longer truly my kin.

I bear no guilt for what we shared, not even when I see young Estel look at me with the heat of his ancestor burning in his eyes. Estel looks so much like Elros, though I will never tell him that. I will never tell him that when he seeks me out, I pretend he's my long-gone brother. I curse his hair that he does not let it grow to a proper length so that I can stroke it and whisper in my mind, "Elros, my brother, how I have missed thee." And when Estel is under me, I can almost pretend. I can almost imagine that Estel is gone, Imladris is gone, and there is just Elros and I and the sea. And the choice.

He led the Edain to Numenor and ruled them quite happily for 410 years. A mere blink for an elf, more than a lifetime for a man. I visited him what seemed to me very often, yet he aged more and more between visits. And after two hundred years, it was almost painful to look upon him. He had grown old when I wasn't looking. He was no longer my twin. He was...wrinkled. Aged. Old.

Mortal.

I took him to bed that night and let him take me. I could not bear to look on him, to see the mark of the Boon growing upon his chest. The wisdom lying heavily on his brow only marked him the more.

"Is this worth it?" I asked him afterwards, as he lay panting. "Is it enough, Elros, to be king of men? Do you not wonder at what you have lost?"

"I have lost nothing, _gwador_," he told me. I almost believed him.

We were always so similar, Elros and I. I answered to his name, and he to mine. It was almost like we didn't need to talk. All I had to do was look at him, and I knew his thoughts. I knew his feelings, his sorrow, his pain. I knew *him*.

But no more. Not then. The man I looked on in my three-hundredth year was not the man I knew. It was the first time I had seen a lover age. It would not be the last, but to this day it is the most painful. I wanted to scream at the Valar for taking him from me. I wanted to scream at them for taking my brother from me and leaving me with this...shell. This man was not my _gwador_. This man was not the boy I had played with under the waterfall all those years ago. This man had never cried with me over the loss of our parents. This man...this man was a stranger.

And I found myself pitying him.

Pity. What a strange emotion. It can bring more danger than one can think, yet it is thought of as being a good emotion. What a lie.

Elros aged, like all men do. I did not. Those are the facts, laid bare. My brother left me, and for all my healing arts, I could do nothing to save him.

I curse this memory at times, this perfect memory. That I should be able to remember at one time my brother as he once was, and on his deathbed. But...would it be worse not to remember? To have to look at myself in the mirror, deduct the years, and say, "This is Elros...I think." Yes, I suppose that might be worse.

But not by much.

Elros was five hundred when he died, an auspicious age for a man, yet I wept all the more for what was lost. I stood over his bed, watched his son give me a look of almost-understanding, and then walk away. I, after all, appeared younger than he. I appeared younger than most of Elros' household. And suddenly I longed for the company of Elves. Among them, at least, I could be truly young. I could forget that, among men, five hundred is old.

But I had long left my childhood behind, and Elros had made his own choice. Though I cursed him often for it, it was his choice to make. He did not want to live. He wanted to die. And so he did. But he killed a part of me in the doing.

Ai, Elros, my twin, that you left me. That you left me to shepherd your children, to try to keep them on the right path. But I toasted with Gil-galad the day Numenor sunk. It serves you right, my brother, to see fail all you spent your short life working to build. It serves you right, my dear brother, to see it fall. It serves you right, my Elros, to hurt as much as I did the day you died.

And Isildur, what a revenge. You did not think your line so weak, _gwador_. You thought your children would be strong. You thought they could overcome. You fool. Your grandson condemned the world to an Age of darkness. Are you happy now, you mortal ingrate? Are you content with what you have wrought upon these shores, that I must continuously clean up after you? Little brother, you continue to make messes even after your death. Even after your bones have sunk into the ocean and been consumed. We shall never meet again, Elros Peredhel. I wonder if you are happy about that.

Oh, Elros, you know I did not mean that. I are merely bitter, my love, after being apart from my kin for so long. I see Ada nightly, chasing across the sky. I see my children, forever avenging their mother's torment. I even see your children, for Estel has come of you. But I shall never see you again. I shall never see your sparkling visage as I once did, coming in from riding, or even just walking around. I shall never see you, save in the mirror.

Ai, Elros, why did you choose death? You could have been happy in Imladris, I know. Your wandering spirit would have been laid to rest, and we could have ruled here together, you and I. And our children could have played together the way Estel does now with my twins. We could have had a future, you and I, Elros. Instead...Instead you left me. And for what?

I suppose it is only right that I miss you more today than any other day. We share a birthday, my beloved twin, but your deathday is only yours. A seemingly innocuous day otherwise...but on this day the skies above Imladris darken, and all mourn.

And for what? For a decaying old man two steps from the grave? That is how I saw you last, Elros Peredhel, and that is an image I will keep in my mind forever. You, stooped, shuddering for breath, leaning on a cane to even move. Pity, my dear brother, but you still did not regret your choice. And you made me take you that night, though I know you were not up to it. Old man, I know you well. You enjoyed forcing your brother into that, knowing that it would be the last pleasure you would have in your long-short life. But you did not know that I knew it was not you. I hid it well, _gwador_, that I know you did not see. Because at that age, you were no longer my brother. You were a man, a memory, that I visited at fifty year intervals. A memory that was living no more, though the man drew breath. You died for me the day you chose, brother. But you did not see it.

I have seen three ages of this earth. I have had many lovers. I have been married. I have three children. Elladan takes after you, _gwador_, though most remark that he takes more after me. But, ah, they did not know you, Elros. They never saw your beauty. Ninety years is not enough. Ninety years is never enough. Estel, Elros, is almost ninety. And I know that he would choose mortality.

Curse your line, Elros Peredhel. Curse it for being always my downfall. For I never could resist you, not even that shell that the humans called Tar-Minyatur. Manipulator. Betrayer.

Brother.

Elros, we are alike, you and I. We were raised together. We learned history at the same table, from the same books. We breathed the same air, drank the same miruvor. We ate from the same plate. So how are we so different, dear brother? How could you choose to leave me?

And in that night, that night you told me to take you one last time, did you think I did not hear you when you whispered, "Elrond, I have no regrets. Don't mourn me."? Did you think I would heed you, you who had betrayed my love? How could I not love you, shell of my brother? How could I not mourn you? Usurper of my _gwador's_ body, how could I not mourn you? I mourned you 410 years, brother. I mourned you every day of your life.

And today I miss you all the more. Estel is setting out tomorrow on a journey that will claim his life and he leaves no heir. I will not give him Arwen until he sits on a throne and so the Dunedain, your descendants, dear brother, are leaderless. I have tried to tell myself that I bore no malice in making this decision. But I lied to myself, Elros. I am not such a hypocrite that I do not know that.

It is not that I hope to bereave you, _gwador_, you have too many children for that. And it is not out of spite, no matter what Arwen screams at me. Rather, I would like to think it is out of caution. Caution, dear Elros, for I know what you can do to Elves. I know how you can make our hearts beat faster, even for just a shell. Just a shell.

Estel has shared my bed, but he does not do so tonight for I have sent him to Arwen. Are you proud, Elros? I seduced you all those years ago, so now you send your descendant to steal my daughter from me? Ah, _gwador_, that's rather petty, even from you. Even from you. Betrayer.

What do you see, Elros, when you peer down from wherever you are now? Are you happy with what your line has wrought? Are you content when you see the world now? All is gone that you once knew, my brother. It has been swallowed up, if not by the sea, then by time. A thousand years is a long time, my Elros, and it has been many thousands since you last laid foot in Eriador.

Or do you smile up there, Elros, since you know that none of this can reach you? Do you smile? Ai, that you would smile for me. You were my light, Elros. Travelers say that of Ada, but I know better. The light in our family was not Ada, but *you*, my darling twin. You were my light, and you shone ever the brighter when we were together. And then you were extinguished.

And you chose that fate! Elros, my twin, I could fault you in nothing but this: you left me. You killed me. And you care not.

Oh, that was cruel. I do not mean such words, you know that, Elros. I love you, even after you cut yourself off from me. I worship you, even though you died and left only a shell that bore your name. And I-I miss you. Terribly.

Every year, Elros, year after year, I have mourned you on this day. The 24th of December by our reckoning, and the Fellowship leaves tomorrow to undo what your descendant did. Ah, but I'm over bitterness by now. Just stay with me, Elros, let me gather you close, close around me. Let me huddle you like a blanket and sleep with you one last time. Next year at this time, one way or another, I will no longer be in Middle-Earth. Let us use this time then, dear memory, dear brother, my beloved _gwador_. Let us use this, and remember.

I love you, Elros Peredhel. And I miss you. Until the end of the world.


End file.
